Margaret Fuller: American Transcendentalist and Feminist

Margaret Fuller to many America's first true feminist or at least holds a distinctive place in the cultural life of the American Renaissance: a time of reform. Her long career lines as literary critic, editor, journalist, teacher, and political activist resulted ultimately into a turned revolutionary. She was charismatic and a spellbinding conversationalist who attracted not only the wives of prominent citizens, but also other sympathetic social reformers. Fuller was a outside their "sphere" thinker with intoxicating proposition on the issues and views Transcendentalist and equality. After The Dial  ceased publication in 1844, Fuller was to relocate to that New York City and to serve as literary and cultural critic for the paper: the New York Tribune. Where she underwent a time of personal growth with  increased awareness of urban poverty and strengthened her commitment to social justice and to the causes that concerned her: prison reform, Abolitionism, Women's Suffrage, and educational and political equality for minorities. Margaret Fuller was a woman of many causes and as said by Higginson, “many women in one.”

Margaret Fuller was born on May 23, 1810 in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts and received an intense education from her father Timothy Fuller. He taught her Greek and Latin at a very early age. With his prominent role a Lawyer and later role as Congressman he provided Margaret Fuller with a fine education. However her father's death brought financial problems for the family, and she became responsible for the education of her younger siblings. She taught school at Bronson Alcott's Temple School and the Green Street School in Providence for two years; in this of this also had time to write. In 1839 she she established formal conversations on various topics, primarily for women, which were very successful for five years. From 1840 to 1842, she served with Emerson, an intellectual, as editor of The Dial a literary and philosophical journal. She wrote many articles and reviews on art and literature and in 1843 The Dial published her essay The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men, Woman versus Women where she called for women's equality. She later wrote expansion of her essay titled  Woman in the Nineteenth Century, which became a classic of feminist thought under the newspaper Tribune. In 1846, as foreign correspondent for the Tribune Fuller traveled to Europe. Where sent back articles about letters and art in Europe and  meet many well-known European writers and intellectuals. She was also involved in Italian revolution of 1847; where she met her husband and had a child a year later. When the revolution failed, they decided to sail to America: in May 1850. This trip back to the Americas ended in tragedy after the captain died of smallpox and was hastily replaced by a less accomplished replacement who crashed in a storm off of Fire Island, New York, on July 19, 1850. Where Fuller, her husband, Angelo, and her baby, Ossoli, sadly drowned.

Fuller advocated overall the movement of women suffrage and the importance for equality in the time of reform of the nineteenth century. This equality was directed to everyone those of color, those who were minorities and of course to women. She expressed her strong views through conventions and her writings. Fuller soon became the voice of feminism through her writings: The Great Lawsuit. Man versus Men, Woman versus Women and Woman in the Nineteenth Century. Fuller believed that the only  way to bring about social reform was through understanding human nature. She articulated the unique Transcendental approach of interpreting the world and with that bettering the condition of humankind through the use of Enlightenment and Humanist ideas. And rejected Calvinism and the concept of original sin and instead took a more optimistic view of human nature. Where human nature was  fundamentally good and how legislation tended to blur the morals and ideals of those with power. Fuller wanted to see any type of improvement in society when it came to equality be it through equal educational opportunities to women or the right to vote. However Fuller did long for  immediate changes to society and express dissatisfaction with what she saw as a lack of progress. Reynolds asserts that she “advanced the powerful idea, adopted by her fellow Transcendentalists, that oppression, when resistant to words and moral suasion, must be met with righteous violence.” and advocated for “Radical Reform”. She was molded by the larger reform movement in the American republic as well as by being an active contributor towards reform. This shaped her view of a good society in one that offered equality rights, opportunities and stance to all, not just the Protestant man.

Arthur Tappan American Abolitionist

Arthur Tappan was an American abolitionist with strong and strict moral views . He was the brother of Senator Benjamin Tappan, and abolitionist Lewis Tappan. With help of his successful businesses he contributed a large amount of his wealth to campaign against alcohol and tobacco and more importantly helped fund several anti-slavery journals and in 1831 helped establish America's first Anti-Slavery Society in New York in 1831. Two years later it became a national organization and Tappan was elected its first president. Its main supporters were from religious groups such as the Quakers and the free black community. However some members of the Anti-Slavery Society considered the organization to be too radical. Leading Tappan to leave and form a rival organization: the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Who was more flexible in critiquing the US Constitution and giving a prominent role to women in the society. He also backed the new anti-slavery Liberty Party. After the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, Tappan realized that the time for change was now and helped fund the Underground Railroad; regardless of the legal and social cons
equences. The Underground Railroad freed thousands of slaves during the time leading up to the civil war and depicted the struggle and need for freedom in the United States.

Arthur Tappan was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, on 22nd May, 1786 and moved to Boston at the age of 15. Tappan was a generous philanthropist and abolition was one of his chief causes. By 1807 established his own dry goods business in Portland, Maine. He expanded his business investments and had a silk-importing firm based in New York was particularly successful. With his brother, Lewis Tappan, he established America's first commercial credit-rating service in New York City. These business help fund Tappan's radicalist and humanitarian ideals. That often made him the target of hostile northern anti-abolitionist mobs; however this hate did not cause Tappan's fire for equality to dwindle. On the contrary he funded many more Anti-Slavery campaigns like, William Lloyd Garrison's: Thoughts on African Colonization which attacked the American Colonization Society In 1832. With Tappan's support, the pamphlet gained a wide circulation, reaching as far west as Ohio. This pamphlet later had put Tappan head wanted in the South in 1835, southern governments: in East Feliciana, Louisiana, and Mount Meigs, Alabama, he was worth $50,000; New Orleans offered $100,000 for his delivery. Apart from the dangers that arose Tappan helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society; the first national abolitionist organization.. Which he also served as president of. Arthur Tappan died on 23rd July, 1865 in New Haven, Connecticut along with leaving a legacy any abolitionist would be proud of.

Arthur Tappan believed in the importance of temperance in American Society; however believed that Slavery was the biggest issue that America was facing at the time. Due to the major standstill between half the nation and the polarizing effect it was having on the nation’s unity. But overall stood up for the immoral dehumanizing attitude the United States was taking on African Americans. After the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850, Tappan realized that something future then conventions needed to take place in order for social justice to be achieved in the present system. The system would lead no where if not parallel to action. This action was in the form of the Underground Railroad, a maneuver around the Fugitive Act. Being part of the Society of Friends, Tappan was a radical Protestant who challenged traditional assumptions of mankind’s evil nature. These were known as Quakers, they emphasized the inherent dignity of the individual, human equality, and each person’s capacity for goodness. Tappan believed that slavery would be the end of the United States if it continued due to immorality of legislation and not being true to the Constitution and the moral values the country was founded on. Only then would the United States be a good society. Legislation has taken the issue of equality in the back burner to economic stability and according to Tappan this moral dilemma needed to stop. This reform could only be achieved through extensive assembly of radicals willing to take action for the cause of abolishment of slavery;even if it meant breaking the law. Active involvement of its citizens was another essential part of good society in the eyes of Tappan.

Jacksonian Democracy: Arthur M.schiesinger, Jr Point of View

Jeffersonian Democracy was a scapegoat for the times problems of industrialism and aristocracy. It was a mere set of social choices for the rich aristocracy class to insure a “common vision” and offered possibilities of success and prosperity to the millions who suffered the tyranny of Britain and now were apart of state not of evil, but of one of sacredness that can be compared to nothing else. This hopla was a theological way of dealing with the government/democracy and had it’s limitations through maximums of the freedom of enterprise without government interference; making it very one dimensional. The issue of competition, in the eyes of Jefferson, was simple those most power will complete amongst themselves. However a the system of enterprise is far more complex than that, one central power arises it monopolizes the business around it. When these monopolies arise there will no longer me room or the possibility of composition for all the power is in one central group; this was the Jacksonian point of view.Jacksonian democracy, putting aside the centralized power issue, placed government in a more practical view in one that need government interference in order to exercise true freedom of enterprise and back to the root of true American democracy.